Where Miss Snark vented her wrath on the hapless world of writers and crushed them to sand beneath her T.Rexual heels of stiletto snark. The blog is dark--no further updates after 5/20/2007.

2.27.2006

Is this for real?

For all her charter membership in the irony, snarkasm and elevated eyebrow deadpan, dry sense of humor department, there are times when Miss Snark isn't quite sure whether something is really a joke, or so awful that it IS a joke.

Most recent entry in the category: the LAT interview with Kate Braverman

Actually, and sadly, this seems pretty on the mark. The clue, I think, is her comment about (paraphrasing here) "going off her meds" so as not to interfere with her writing. She's better known here in L.A. than she claims - and now she most certainly is. (The woman *can* write, though. Not entirely my taste, a bit fervid, but...)

Yeah, it sounds like she was higher than a kite when she gave this interview. Than again, if she was a writer with more clout in the industry, I'm sure her PR person would've leaned on the reporter to do some judicious editing...

Like I said, she is most interesting - and I should have mentioned, probably talented...

But as a newspaper writer, I would have had a very hard time writing about her.

You would have to walk a very fine line with the article, enough to make people interested, but not enough to send them screaming in droves away from her work - because of most people's lack of knowledge about mental illnesses.

I know, firsthand, how you act may be nothing like you are in real life.

(Oh yeah baby! Some of my best party friends are stodgy, stiff, "uppercrust" sounding writers, who you'd never imagine had cracked a beer, let alone a smile!)

i read the L.A Times article and did not sense that she was anything but serious in her comments about not being appreciated in L.A. I think she was, indeed, serious in her sentiment that she is the best in the city but how much of this is said for attention is another issue.

This woman, besides some psychological and biochemical issues, clearly has a flare for performance art>> if you listen/watch the piece referred to by ellen, you can see she is able to be self-mocking while making her point...and actually, she reminds me of a good rendition of "Beat" poetry being performed to music.

So, i'm suggested she believes what she says, but also knows how to use the media for her own purposes--in this case, saying something outrageous that you wouldn't expect to hear an author say in an interview. But, hey, outhere we have all kinds of movie stars who are full of themselves (and not shy about broadcasting it) so this may just be her way of fitting in with them.

Kate Braverman is an amazing writer. And, to echo one of the anon's, give her a break. Bipolar disease can be devastating, especially when the one affected chooses not to medicate. Read "Touched by Fire", by Kay Redfield Jamison, which looks at bipolar disease, creativity, and how closely intertwined they are in many artists. (The study on the prevalence of mood disorders among Iowa Writers' Workshop students is particularly fascinating!)

As a clinical psychologist, I can tell you that these sound like the grandiose statements that an unmedicated manic person would make. If this writer is bipolar and unmedicated, and the reporter/editor knew this, then shame on them for conducting the interview and publishing this piece.

What "entitlement" excuse are you speaking of? Listen, we're not saying she was admirable to have uttered such stuff in an interview--we're just trying to see it in a somewhat sympathetic or humane light.

Do you like Picasso's work? I do, but the man wasn't exactly the apogee of great human qualities.

Main point: Kate Braverman is a very good writer, whether or not she's an irritating interviewee.

My mother, I truly believe, was bipolar. She had all the classic mood swings, which included those times when she was the greatest in the world and those around her owed all their accomplishments to her.

Sadly, she had a firm dislike for those in the medical profession. After all, what could they tell her she didn't already know? And what things they did tell her, she didn't want to hear.

When my book came out, she promptly went out and bought a number of copies ... which she then signed for all her friends.

Many bipolar people don't want to take meds because of how it makes them feel. Dealing with it seems to be a better choice--although it certainly isn't most of the time, but in their minds, it is. My son-in-law chose not to take the meds and put a gun to his chest instead. You can't imagine the mood swings these people have. Whether she can write or not, if she can deal with being bipolar without medication, she is a star as far as I'm concerned. Linda

So, knowing that Kate Braverman is ill (and bi polar disorder is an illness as we all know) why would the LA Times print this? Did they want to make her look like an ego obsessed bitch?

She MIGHT BE an ego obsessed bitch. Even bipolar people, when not manic, can be egotistical assholes. I'm bipolar. Your comments, Miss Snark, while compassionate, don't sit quite right with me. A person is still responsible for their behavior and what comes out of their mouths. If they're having a psychotic or manic episode at the time, the reporter should divulge that, of course, and not make the story an exploitative piece of crap that makes her look like a big-headed nut. But she might be, independent of her illness. And personally, I don't respect anyone who says they would rather be debilitated than be on meds. Manic depression and schizophrenia have the highest suicide rates of any other mood disorders. A responsible reporter might have included that fact, too, instead of turning her into a grandiose caricature.

It's funny the Mortica line that everyone seems to love is actually a quote from another interview with Kate from the San Francisco Chronicle. The best line the LA Times wasn't even written by that interviewer.

Let's get real. This is an LA Times article and what type of 'journalism' is on display? This is a horrible piece writing where the interviewer has, apparently, never read anything by the author she is interviewing and couldn't care less. This journalist has absolutely nothing to say and doesn't say it in the worst possible way. Kate may or may not be God's gift to LA lit. She may or may not be massively conceited. But at least she can put a sentence together. If Anne-marie has any literary sense or sensibility it remains completely hidden... or to use one of Kate's own lines the interviewer apparently faxed her part in from another planet.